The WA government will spend $72.6 million combating family violence, with funding for crisis accommodation and prevention, intervention and education programs.

November 28, 2023

The West Australian government will spend more than $70 million in an effort to combat family and domestic violence.

The funding includes $22.6 million to refurbish and enlarge an ageing crisis accommodation centre for victim-survivors escaping violence.

It also provides $5 million for a two-year public education campaign to promote understanding about domestic violence and challenge outdated views.

The Respectful Relationships teaching support program will be expanded, with $1.5 million set aside to create more online content, including culturally appropriate material for young Aboriginal people.

Premier Roger Cook said the funding would provide support for victim-survivors, intervention programs for perpetrators, and education programs to help prevent family and domestic violence.

“(Family and domestic violence) is a blight on our society (and) it’s something that we all need to work together to overcome and to eliminate,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“The impact of this horrific abuse affects the entire community. It is unacceptable and it must stop.

The measures also include $12 million in grants to support primary prevention and Aboriginal family safety and $6.6 million for the new Ruah Centre for Women and Children, which will offer crisis accommodation via 13 units in an inner-city location.

A further $6 million has been allotted for perpetrator programs, including expansion into new locations in regional WA, and $3.1 million to expand the Safe at Home program which is helping women and children stay safely in their homes.

Mr Cook said family and domestic violence perpetrators must held to account for their actions and their victims must be supported.

“We need to (also) make sure that we do what we can to communicate and continue to the conversation in our community, to make sure that people understand that it’s not okay, it’s never okay,” he said.

Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence Minister Sabine Winton said the funding would help to address the scourge of family and domestic violence in WA.

“We take this issue extremely seriously,” she said.

“We need to stop family domestic violence before it starts and the key to that is by talking to young people by supporting them to call out disrespectful behaviour.”

The announcement follows calls for a South Australian royal commission into domestic violence after four women were murdered by men in the state in one week.